Preparing for Summer

Most of the track on my small shelf layout is now built and both modules almost completely fitted with a very basic covering of kitchen rags, white glue and a light earth colour. Currently I'm planning for the next stages that I can hopefully begin to work on during the Summer.

With modules placed temporarily in the garden I begin to get a feel of the layout. Here the curve to the lorry ramp seen from what is usually the side facing the wall in the layout room.

My to do-list for the layout the coming weeks looks like this:

• Locate folding tool
• Bend up fishplates and fit to track
• Finish and fit point lever to remaining turnout
• Paint rails a rust colour
• Ballast testing
• Progress on loading ramp

All pretty basic tasks with all necessary supplies already available (except the difficult to locate folding tool). While railway modelling is entertaining, 1:1 preservation is both entertaining and sometimes stressful. Last year was not a good year for most preservation societies in Denmark due to the lock downs necessary to fight the corona pandemic.

With the pandemic under control in Denmark the 700 mm vintage railway I volunteer on could open for traffic as scheduled May 16. A number of chartered trains have also been running on the line, making it necessary to plan permanent way works carefully. Hopefully the railway will experience a trouble free season with a decent outcome.

Chartered train pulled by No. 3 (O&K 7459/1921) meets a permanent way train with M 30 (Diema 5145/1991) in track 2 at Brandhøj Station.

 

Railbus D 13 rolling gently into track 3 on Hedehusgård Station with Dannebrog flying from the station's flagpole.

Volvo Duett In Service

All cars and equipment on Nystrup Gravel receives minor modifications before going into service. It probably ruins the model as a collector's item, but I need models that fit my model universe and not shiny toys. I aquired the BoS Volvo PV445 Duett last summer and it has now received small added details and a very light weathering.

Shop manager Thorleif Petersen admires an almost brand new Volvo PV445 parked near the tracks in Nystrup. 

As the Volvo is a 1956 model and consequently just outside my chosen period, I didn't want it to be weathered too much. Basically I only added specially designed Danish period license plates from Skilteskoven decals and a light weathering. The weathering consisted of a very light pass with the air brush loaded with a thin mix of light sand and grey. I concentrated the dust treatment to wheels and tires, with only minimal dusting of the lower parts of the car's body.

Front license plate separated from the bumper and painted off the car. The rear plate stayed on the model, taking a bit more care to paint. The decal sheet from Skilteskoven has license plates for additional models that will show up near Nystrup in the future.

Decals are fitted and the front license plate now needs to be super glued back on the bumper.

Modelling isn't only progress and achieving results. It's also handling models and breaking parts off them. While air brushing I forgot to take care and broke off the Volvo's right rear view mirror. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with some AC glue, but nevertheless annoying.

Quite a pair of practical doors for loading stuff, Thorleif seems to think. Although very interested in everything mechanical, Thorleif never went beyond bike and scooter for his own personal transportation. For longer distances he prefered train travel.

Nystrup Lister 1952

A new image of Nystrup Gravel's Lister R has surfaced. Writing on the back of the image says '1952'. The image is from the gravel works in Nystrup. With the naked ground it must be autumn as the trees still carry their leaves.

Nystrup Gravel loco no 3 on the way down from the loading ramp in Nystrup. The driver must have been quite skillful to propel 3 loaded skips up the ramp with the Lister. No 3 was usually only used for light shunting in Nystrup or the occasional light permanent way train.

I know of only two other original photographs of the Lister railtractor in service at Nystrup Gravel. I showed one of the images on the blog last year. The new image shows the Lister in basically the same condition as the 1950 photo. It's apparently even the same driver driving? 

The prototype photographs available from Nystrup Gravel makes a good source of inspiration for my modelling and I find it very satisfying to recreate some of the original scenes on my small 16 mm layout.

Loading Ramp #2

With the track building fast approaching the loading ramp area, I set out to build the wooden retaining walls keeping the earth fill in place under the ramp itself. In the process I also tested the dimensions and design of the trestle like structure of the wooden ramp itself.

Ramshackled ramp erected for testing. The real ramp will be flimsy, but definately more substantial than this!

I built the wooden walls on pieces of foam board cut to roughly match the contours of the earth fill. The foam board was painted black and then clad with lengths of wood in a variety of dimensions. The wood was treated with wood staining fluid to produce several tones of grey. With the different dimensions of wood used, the work was quite like a little jig saw puzzle.

Retaining walls in progress. The Nystrup Gravel workshop manager seems a little sceptical (as always when he wasn't in control of a project).

I will be installing the retaining walls with only basic weathering. Once the complete ramp and surrounding landscape is finished I will be adding the full package of weathering. Having never built a layout in 16 mm scale before I'm still unsure about many elements in the construction process. Can I weather a structure this large to meet my desired level of quality when it is solidly attached to the module? Time will tell.

While I have already chosen a prototype loading ramp I nevertheless keep checking old photographs to better understand how loading ramps were designed (some thought must have gone into at least some of them), built and used. The digitalization of Danish archives is of a tremendous benefit to this study.

Loading ramp for lorries at a clay pit near Nostrup, Kalundborg. The photo is reported to be part of a series taken in 1939-1940. Notice how low the ramp is. Photo: Ø85, Kalundborg Lokalarkiv.

Loading Ramp Preparations

The wooden loading ramp at Nystrup Gravel has been under preparation for a long time. Now construction has begun. Before the ramp itself could be constructed I needed to contour the surrounding landscape and cover the foam surface with kitchen rags soaked in white glue. I also glued down cork to act as an underlay for track. Sleepers were then glued in place and the two pre-bent lengths of rail positioned.

Every fourth or fifth sleeper spiked and it's time for test running. As I have only one loco in running order it's easy to guess which one had the priviledge. The Lister only has single axle drive and is struggling bringing more than three skips up the ramp. Fortunately the loading ramp is dimensioned for unloading exactly three skips.

As the small layout splits into 2 segments, I have the possibility of taking a module outside to work on. One afternoon after work I managed to partially cover the loading ramp module with white glue and kitchen rags. I like to model outside, and while we have had a rather cold spring in Denmark it's great to listen to the birds singing while working on a module.

The loading ramp module placed on a galvanized barrel usually used as a small bar. Perfect for sipping a G&T while chatting with family or friends.

With the kitchen rags dry and painted, I spiked the track with the two lengths of rail uncut, despite them crossing from one module to another. Where the rails cross the separation between the modules I have soldered them to brass screws to make sure the track ends will be properly fixed and aligned. Once the track is thoroughly tested, I will cut the rails to enable the modules to be separated again. While the first track I built in both 1:35 and now in 1:19 scale never looked exactly as bad as I wanted, I have succeeded on the ramp. Here the track really diverts from the optimal alignment in every direction. Lovely!

The track fixed down and soldered to brass screws. My locating of the sleepers close to the module ends aren't quite up to standards - even though Nystrup Gravel never had written standards on track.

In between spiking sessions (which can be a little tedious) I have selected wooden profiles for the construction of the loading ramp. After sanding and weathering with knife and wire brush I stained the wood to give it a basic greyish colour.

The 600 mm track on the earth ramp is finished. On the side of the ramp 3 track gauges has been left by the track worker. The pile of bent spikes is a result of gripping them with the flat nosed pliers too close to the top while pressing them through the sleeper.

A view up the ramp. The faults in the track curiously doesn't look too bad in the image. Seeing the Lister crawl over the track with a pair of skips brings out the uneveness of track much better.

If all goes well I should be back quite soon with more boring news of building track and gluing pieces of wood together for a layout so small it hardly deserves to be categorized as a model railway.

Wood Gas Generator

On my old 1/35 scale version of Nystrup Gravel I had several vehicles with wood burning gas generators including a locomotive. As the technology is fascinating I decided to have at least one vehicle with wood gas propulsion on my 1/19 scale Nystrup Gravel. I was fortunate enough to find a kit on eBay of what looks like an Imbert gas generator. The manufacturer was Dioramaparts, a German company selling detail parts and kits through eBay in 2019. The company unfortunately seems to have stopped trading since.

The zip lock plastic bag emptied: here are the kit parts for a gas generator in 1/19 scale. Light sand parts are resin, plastic parts are in small bags and the 6 parts in the middle are white metal.

So far I haven't found any other kits of gas generators in 1/18-1/19 scale and I'm glad I made the purchase, despite the kit being quite rudimentary. All the main parts are there, though. With good images and drawings of a prototype gas generator and some basic modelling skills I'm sure I can enhance the kit parts to a decent level.

I have not yet decided what to place the gasgenerator on. As the gas generator is a fairly large model usually mounted on lorries with 50 hp engines the obvious chioce would be a lorry. In the back of my mind I am considering a loco, though, as there aren't many lorries available in 1/19 scale. 

A Danish built JWE-locomotive with a rear mounted gas generator. Photo: Kolding Stadsarkiv B41387.

Here is an image I've shown before: My grandad driving a JWE-loco with rear mounted Vulcan-generator. Photo: B1650 Lokalhistorisk Arkiv og Forening i Allerød Kommune.

Yet another JWE-loco fitted with gas generator, only front mounted. This mounting enabled coupling to wagons both front and rear without the awkward frame extension on my granddad's loco. Photo: Vejle Stadsarkiv B73442.

Track Building Continues

With a new delivery of rails and sleepers from Wenz Modell in Germany I have switched from working with white glue and kitchen rags to preparing track bed and setting out curves. Next stage of my track building is the sharp curve on the gradient towards the loading ramp for lorries.

Testing in progress. Lister-loco having pushed two skips up the gradient and through the curve to the soon to be built wooden ramp.

To make sure my mediocre surveyor skills would result in a nice curve, I tested the laid out curve with a Peco track panel. It turned out that the curve was laid out with the sensible margins appropriate for an industrial railway. I then cut cork underlay and glued it down on the foam foundation. Two newly delivered Code 143 rails have been bent to the right radius and sleepers are being prepared.

During construction of the track, all traffic is somewhat hampered and a lot of communication is necessary to make everything run smoothly. 

While track building at Nystrup Gravel is a very quiet thing, I recently visited a site, where the sound levels were quite different. Here sleepers are being exchanged in track running near the end of one of the runways at Copenhagen Airport (CPH).